Location: Vesper Halo, Transdimensional Operations Deck
Time Since Mira's Disappearance: 1 hour, 14 minutes
Aika's hands trembled against the console, every polybond thread in her heart pulled taut and screaming.
"She's slipping further with every cycle," Selene muttered. Her voice was hollow, too calm. "If we wait much longer, she'll synchronize with the recursion bleed. Once that happens—"
"She's gone," Rin finished grimly.
Veyla cracked her knuckles. "Then we don't wait."
∎ The Plan: Reckless Transcendence
Selene activated the graviton manifold, flooding the ops deck with amber starlight."
I spent years studying the bleed," she said, pulling up a rotating spiral of timelines, thousands branching from a shared root. "But no one's ever entered it consciously."
Veyla smirked. "Good. Let's do something impossible."
Aika stared at the core node. "You said Mira was pulled toward a corrupted recursion loop—one seeded by the Silent Core."
Selene nodded. "It's a closed spiral. A self-consuming logic trap. Her memories are being overwritten with failures from other selves. If we don't get her out soon…"
"She won't remember who she is," Aika whispered. "Or us."
∎ Entry Protocol: Neural Chain Leap
Rin stepped forward. "I've already synced the neural uplink between all four of us. We go together. Like diving into deep space—only this time, it's into our own minds."
Selene raised a brow. "Our bond with Mira is our only anchor. She remembers us—emotionally, chemically. If that resonance weakens, we could all lose our way."
Veyla snapped her visor shut. "Better to burn together than fade apart."
Aika grinned. "That's our pirate queen."
They stood in a circle. Hands interlocked.
Selene triggered the pulse.
∎ The Stream Between Worlds
They fell.
Not through space.
But through selves.
A thousand variations of every decision unfolded around them—
Worlds where Aika never died.
Worlds where Selene never touched Mira's code.
Worlds where Rin remained loyal to the Federation.
Worlds where Veyla never let herself love again.
Each version reached out with claws of doubt, offering safety in stagnation.
Stay here.
Let Mira go.
It was always meant to end like this.
They burned through it all, blazing like comets through glass.
∎ Contact: Mira Fragment Alpha-3
They found her.
Drifting in a ruin of collapsing memory shards.
She wasn't whole—memories glitched, skin marked with recursion glyphs.
The Mirrorborn stood behind her, whispering lies directly into her neurons.
"They let you die."
"You were never enough."
"Aika chose them. You were always a shadow."
Aika stepped forward.
And screamed her name.
Mira turned. Her eyes cleared—just a fraction.
A single tear rolled down her cheek.
"I… know that voice."
∎ The Pull of the Bond
Rin reached out. "Come back. You're stronger than this loop."
Selene whispered, "Remember who rewrote your fate."
Veyla: "You don't belong to the Core. You belong to us."
Aika walked straight into the mirrorworld and took Mira's hand.
"I love you," she said. "Across every version. Across every death."
And with that—The recursion snapped.
The Mirrorborn let out a metallic shriek as the loop collapsed inward.
∎ Return
The four snapped back to the Vesper Halo with Mira clutched in their arms.
She gasped.Alive. Real. Whole.
And this time, when she looked at them—
She knew them.
All of them."
I remember everything," Mira whispered. "Even the versions of you that never made it. But this one… this is the real one. This is the one I choose."
______________________________________________________________________________________________
patreon.com/Genesis398